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By Guy Page
Gov. Phil Scott on May 15 signed into law a medical debt relief bill he warned lawmakers could increase medical debt in the long run.
S.27, titled medical debt relief and excluding medical debt from credit reports, allocates $1 million to the State Treasurer from the General Fund for contracting with a nonprofit entity to acquire and repay certain medical debts incurred by low-income Vermont residents.
The law, sponsored by Senate Health & Welfare Chair Sen. Ginny Lyons (D-Chittenden) and others, is intended to help both debt-ridden Vermonters and health care providers facing catastrophic failure due to budget shortfalls.
Scott’s ‘yes, but’ letter cites three concerns:
- Much of this debt has already been written off by healthcare providers as uncollectable and built into higher rates for ratepayers.
- “With a looming healthcare crisis and our growing crisis of affordability in Vermont, we should anticipate this debt financing program to grow [editor’s italics] which raises significant concerns about future appropriations and where the funding will come from.”
- “Now that we have created this million-dollar program, we may be disincentivizing repayment because of a misperception that “the State” will eventually pay for it.
Vetoes inmate support program bill funded elsewhere – Scott also delivered a ‘soft veto’ of a bill to provide support for incarcerated Vermonters. H.219, establishing the Department of Corrections’ Family Support Program, “violates the constitutionally mandated, separation of powers by attempting to obligate the Governor to include funding in the annual budget submission to the Legislature,” Scott wrote in a May 15 letter to legislators.
However, Scott noted program funding is included in the state budget bill approved by both House and Senate, “so it will move forward in FY26 as planned. I would also welcome the Legislature to send me the bill again with the change, if preferred, or address it next session.”
Scott also signed into law this week:
S.36, delivery and payment of certain services provided through the Agency of Human Services, services for persons who are incapacitated, and Human Services Board proceedings
- H.41, abuse of the dead body of a person
- S.50, increasing from 15 to 25 KW the size of solar net metering projects that qualify for expedited registration
- H.339, removing the repeal of 7 V.S.A. § 230. The repeal would have removed state regulations on off-site consumption of alcoholic beverages by July 1 of this year.
- H.364, approval of the annexation of town property at 124 First Street by the Village of Swanton, in connection with construction of new police station.
- H.98, confirmatory adoptions and standby guardianships
- S.56, creating an Office of New Americans
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Categories: Health Care, Legislation
We need a bill signed to relieve taxpayers from property taxes and proposed future grocery taxes.
Governor Scott, never lets us down with his ineptness to stand on principle for the people, and not the leftist special interest groups.
Instead of funding on nonsense, how about a tax reduction for the working and retired taxpayers……… Nah, it’s easier to go with the flow, leadership not so much.
We deserve better.
Exactly and why is this medical relief only for low income! If you are going to sign a bill you shouldn’t be signing it should help everyone not just low income. The elderly get sick and have to spend their savings to pay these types of bills! They are just as deserving. Families that have a cancer patient in the family or a chronically ill person struggle to pay these bills! This is a terrible law! Shame on the Governor for signing it! Always with Democrats! Just switch Party’s!!!
for me 2 main concerns are that it only helps those holding debt as they had already given up hope of collecting and to set a precedent that the state will pick up the tab for people’s debt. every day we move further and further from the concept of a person is responsible for their own life.whether is debt, drugs, a job, a home or many other things people need to figure out how to make things work for them
GOVIE is bailing out the medical mafia.
A non-profit receives $1 Million to acquire and renegotiate medical debt? The State is contracting with a non-profit for debt collection on behalf of a third party or to grease the palms of a non-profit? Is this under the purview of the Federal Trade Commission and compliant to the Federal Fair Debt and Collection Practices Act? Where are the numbers of how far $1 Million is supposed to stretch to pay off phantom medical debts? If it’s not reported on a credit report, why bother? Is this to reimburse the UVM network for treating illegals or a down payment on Medicare/Medicaid fraud claw backs? How much will they want next year to fund this laundering “fund?”
Appears to me $1 Million was just grifted to a non-profit and there will be no accountibility as to what debts are paid and to whom. The hog trough overfloweth for relatives, friends, associates, and donors. No honor among thieves – it’s all being washed through the in-laws and outlaws.